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Australia – Moving with Purpose

Attending the APSI presentation from Kylie Dwyer, Jon Steele and Jason Clausen was a pleasure. They presented several aspects of their riding techniques that are specific to the Australian snow conditions:
– Anticipated position where hips and shoulders are aligned across the angle of the front foot, and the lead shoulder is externally rotated and shoulder blade actively retracted towards the spine,
– Movements at the transition between edges in which re-centering over a flat base is prioritized, and
– Full body steering throughout the turn.

Due to the generally icy conditions Down Under, the APSI places importance with keeping their centre of mass over the board. To do this they use up-unweighting throughout all of their levels to help recenter more reliably from turn-to-turn, although down-unweighting is used. Early steering into the inside of the turn, and movements from front- to rear-foot (from start to finish) to drive the board through the arc.

To exemplify the differences between up and down-unweighting, they took us through several tactics, ranging from their exam criteria short turns from their Level 2 all the way to linked heel-to-heel advanced short turns. While they acknowledge that down-unweighting tends to be faster and more powerful than up-unweighting, they caution that down un-weighting tends to put us in more inclined and less balanced positions throughout the turn.

The Aussies continue to have a unique perspective in snowsports and their techniques can give us a positive nudge in a different direction than we’re used to.

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USA: Teaching With Learning as the Outcome

The PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America) presented an indoor lecture today on being learning focused in our lessons (vs. teaching focused).

Being learning focused involves considering the learning environment that is being created in the lesson. Six fundamental ideas can help this:

1: Collaborate on goals. What does the student want to learn in the short and long term? Be ready to adjust if objectives change throughout the lesson or day. Check in! Ask, don’t direct.

2: Manage information, activities, terrain, and pacing. Describe info accurately – for example, in skiing many students would think of a round shape if you say “make a pizza” – not a wedge! Explain clearly and accurately, but don’t over explain.

Managing activities and terrain must be considered carefully. Will it affect the students’ ability to absorb info? Often it’s better to err on the minimal side of the difficulty spectrum.

3: Promote play, experimentation and exploration. Finding limits and allowing students to be autonomous in their learning will assist in retention of info. Make mistakes and try again with a new approach.

4: Facilitate the learner’s ability to reflect. Create experiences and sensations that prompt students to think about and/or verbalize their experience with an activity. This may require some questions from the instructor.

5: Adapt to the changing needs of the learner. Plan to adjust your plan. With assessment of your student’s skills / attitude / comfort level or fitness, you might not be able to follow the plan you have in mind. Consider your student’s motivations.

6: Manage emotional and physical risk. It’s easy to take someone to more challenging terrain, but this may not be the best approach for your student, or the most refined way of teaching. Consider the implications of more-difficult terrain on your student, and try to keep things in the “sweet spot” between not being bored but also not being afraid.

Consider speed, challenge level, tactics and motivations when managing risk in your lesson.

“Attention is the currency of learning.”

Managing, adapting, collaborating, and reviewing/refining will make for a better lesson overall. We need a teaching and information focus in our lessons, but only if it works hand on hand with a learning focus.

Thanks USA!

Jeff Chandler

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What’s the Value of Interski?

Interski comes around every four years, and from an association perspective it represents a large cost (or investment, depending how you view it) which begs the question – what is the value that CASI receives from this event?

Not only a demo event, I really view Interski as a chance for us to check in with our counterparts from around the world, and put our methodology to the test. Are we really maintaining relevance in the snowboard teaching space? Are our riding techniques evolving as we learn more and more about our sport? These are questions that we are trying to ask (and answer) here this week.

A key element to Interski has always been the sharing of information and findings with our members. Now more than ever, this is easier than it’s ever been. This blog is a great example of this – daily updates from the event have made the info more and more accessible to CASI members back home in Canada, and abroad.

This gathering of info also assists us in making sure that our programs and system continue to improve. We have never shied away from updating our programs, if we feel that there’s a better way, and this event allows us to really check in.

As well, CASI enjoys a really positive reputation on the international stage, and our presence at this event in Finland this week, as well as previous Interski events, has helped to support this.

This morning, the Interski team had a short gondola discussion about the value the Interski represents for CASI…tune in below to the video to listen in!

Jeff Chandler

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So where is Levi, Finland??

Levi is a fell located in Finnish Lapland, and is the largest ski resort in Finland.

At a latitude of 67.8° north, it is located 170 km north of the Arctic Circle. The snowboard season in Levi is fairly long: from October to mid-May. Levi has about 3 weeks without daylight in December, and the hill is lit with spectacular rainbow light shows. However, it’s now March and past the vernal equinox, so we’re enjoying over 12 hours of sunshine daily — although temperatures are still forecasted to be cold -25°C overnight and -9 to -5°C during the days.

This week the forecast for solar activity is also very high, and the CASI Interski Team was welcomed on our arrival into Kittilä airport last night by a spectacular display of the Northern Lights.

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On the way!

I’m writing from the car as J.S. Forget (from the CSIA) and I are on the way to YVR to begin our trip to Finland; we’re both giddy with anticipation.

I’m excited to represent CASI and our methodologies on the world stage. I’ve been lucky enough to get a few opportunities to practice presenting our on-snow session and I feel like it does a great job of showing our strengths.

I’m also excited to take in what the other organizations have to offer. My schedule is packed full of interesting session topics. I’ll have reports for all of you here soon! Stay tuned!